Lisel Mueller

What The Dog Perhaps Hears

If an inaudible whistleblown between our lipscan send him home to us, then silence is perhapsthe sound of spiders breathingand roots mining the earth; it may be asparagus heaving, headfirst, into the lightand the long brown soundof cracked cups, when it happens. We would like to ask the dogif there is a continuous whirbecause the child in the house keeps growing, if the snakereally stretches full lengthwithout a click and the sunbreaks through clouds withouta decibel of effort, whether in autumn, when the treesdry up their wells, there isn't a shuddertoo high for us to hear.

What is it like up thereabove the shut-off levelof our simple ears?For us there was no birth cry,the newborn bird is suddenly here, the egg broken, the nest alive,and we heard nothing when the world changed.

Besides all of the 'why didn't i ever think of this? ' moments in this poem - i love how we are led to see beyond the experience of human existence - and be hit with a reminder that how, in some contexts, WE are not the most aware.
(Report)Reply